Ballot boxes to open Oct. 17; commissioners urge respect, privacy for voters, election workers

With ballots being mailed and ballot boxes opening throughout Lane County this Thursday, commissioners urged respect and privacy for voters and election workers. On Oct. 15:

Steve Mokrohisky (Lane County administrator): Our elections updates: So, Dena Dawson, our county clerk, has provided this and I’ll share it with you. It is E-minus-21, so 21 days to the general election.

[00:00:22] As of Friday, Oct. 11, we had approximately 700 ballots that have been returned.

[00:00:29] Voter registration overview: From Oct. 1 to Oct. 11, online registrations were 3,397 and paper registrations were 799. That was a 10-day period of time… So in total, more than double the number of registrations in a 10-day period of time compared to the entire month of April. So a lot of election activity.

[00:00:54] In terms of election security and transparency, this has been a focus and a real effort statewide and certainly in our Lane County clerk’s office. We’ve recently installed four new dropbox surveillance cameras as part of a pilot program from the secretary of state’s office. These cameras operate 24/7, allowing access to footage for election staff, secretary of state’s office members, technical services staff at host locations, and Lane County technical services.

[00:01:22] So you get a theme here over time of a lot of video surveillance of both the dropbox locations as well as the elections office and the processing work, the work of our staff and volunteers and observers. So really making sure that we have security and accountability as well as transparency in the process.

[00:01:45] The new camera installation locations include the Florence Police Department, the Springfield City Hall, Amazon Pool and Sheldon Library. Additionally, the drop boxes at the elections buildings and the public safety building are directly monitored by video cameras. Many of the other 15 drop boxes are indirectly monitored through the host location surveillance systems.

[00:02:10] Further enhancements include additional cameras in the election office to increase transparency in the deconstruction room and now 42-inch monitors in the voting system observation area to illuminate the adjudication process.

[00:02:24] Again, because we have in-person folks who can monitor the process, but as opposed to having to stand over someone and watch over their shoulder, you can actually see the projection on a large video screen.

[00:02:37] Upcoming deadlines for the presidential and recall elections:

[00:02:41] Thursday, Oct. 17: Ballots will be mailed to local and out-of-state voters. So start watching here in the next several days as Thursday, Oct. 17 is when ballots will be mailed.

[00:02:53] Also on Oct. 17, the 21 ballot boxes will open countywide. So when ballots go out on the 17th, drop boxes open on the 17th.

[00:03:04] And third, on Oct. 17—a lot of activity on the 17th—livestream broadcast begins. So ballots get mailed, drop boxes open up, and the livestream broadcast begins on Oct. 17.

[00:03:16] On Oct. 25, ballots return dashboard goes live so you can go on our website and see the dashboard and start tracking activity via that dashboard.

[00:03:27] And then on Oct. 28, deconstruction teams will start opening ballots.

[00:03:31] So we’ll provide another update on Oct. 22, next Tuesday. Each Tuesday we’re providing updates so anyone wants to tune in to see what’s going on, you can do that, but of course, if you can’t tune into these meetings or watch the recordings from them, the dashboard that we provide that will go live on Oct. 25 will give regular updates to people for that.

[00:03:54] Commissioner Heather Buch: I had the benefit of watching a live webinar with secretary of states of many of the battleground states this election cycle, and talking about best practices that they’re seeing at their elections department.

And of those, these new cameras at dropbox sites have become a real opportunity for them and they often have them at every box site. And I know we’ve started with four and we got a grant to get those and was curious how much they are and if there are additional grants available so that we can have them at all of our sites eventually.

[00:04:36] I know that that our clerk would love that, but I’m just very curious how we can help facilitate that.

[00:04:42] And at some of these election sites they have been able to accommodate public viewing by putting like this large glass-ish wall up so people have a viewing area. And I know that not every building can accommodate that, depending on its size and its location, but some of these you can just like walk by and you can see, transparently, all the activity that’s going on within the building at all times, including the video cameras that we’ve got.

[00:05:16] So I just want to applaud the transparency increase that our clerk has been able to accomplish and wondering how we can help facilitate even more transparency on our own end.

[00:05:32] Steve Mokrohisky (Lane County administrator): Happy next week to give an update on your questions around the cost of video surveillance and what it would take possibly to do that at all of our sites. And it’s a good suggestion. This would be a great time of year and in other buildings that are accessible to the public where we have TV screens that we aren’t putting any other things up, that would be a great thing to do to just provide that insight.

[00:05:52] So that’s a conversation that we can have about where could we possibly display the video monitoring and then we’ll report back next week on other surveillance opportunities.

[00:06:01] John Q: Commissioners also unanimously approved a statement.

[00:06:06] Steve Mokrohisky (Lane County administrator): I believe this was the request that was made by Chair Trieger and Vice Chair Loveall. So this is again a reportback related to our elections process and the desire of commissioners to make a statement about our expectations both within our organization, our community, around the foundation of our democracy, our electoral process.

[00:06:27] I want to thank Devon Ashbridge, our public information officer, for doing the work and crafting what I believe is the really outstanding statement in response to the desire of commissioners. So happy to answer any questions that you may have.

[00:06:44] Commissioner Heather Buch: I just want to express my thanks for bringing this up, Commissioner Loveall. So I appreciate that very much and very much appreciate Devon’s work on the language. It’s really important and it’s very timely. So I just wanted to give my praise around.

[00:07:05] Commissioner David Loveall: I just want to thank especially all the board for supporting this. It brought to my attention at a meeting where a person was really concerned about the emotional hostility and some of the things that are surrounding our election.

[00:07:15] And it’s a very difficult time for a lot of us to communicate accurately how our feelings are about who we support and what we don’t support. And it’s just really a good idea and a respectful idea for us to remember as citizens, we owe one another not only the civility of humanity, but also the exchange of discourse, of disagreement without intimidation or violence.

[00:07:34] So I thought it was really important for us as a board to make this statement and to say that we are in support of the democratic process of disagreement, but we’re just not in support of the intimidation that can go with it if you feel like your voice is not being heard.

[00:07:47] As the county commission, your voice is always wanted and welcomed here to be heard.

[00:07:50] John Q: The statement, signed by all commissioners, affirms the importance of respect and privacy for all voters and election workers in Lane County.